Excerpts From The Novel Star Wars: The Courtship Of Princess Leia
It makes me sad to go into libraries these days, because it just does. Somehow libraries have become the cultural equivalent of 8-track cassettes, or Betamax, or line-dancing. Libraries these days have become the home of the homeless, the anachronistic, and the unloved. Which is nice, but also a little sad. …But anyway, I do love my local library. My adorable local library has about 500 books in it. It’s located inside a faded 19th century church; gray stone and stained-glass windows; it has one big room, three computers, stacks of DVDs, and then a very random and tiny selection of books.
Here are some of the books that my library doesn’t have: anything by James Joyce, anything by Dostoevsky, anything by Martin Amis, anything by Kerouac, anything by Joyce Carol Oates, anything by Lorrie Moore, and so on. My library does, however, have a quite startling selection of Star Wars books, set in what true nerds know as the “expanded universe,” and what non-nerds call nothing at all. (…My library also has a novel called Star, written by Pamela Anderson; which is interesting, but which is of no relevance to this article.)
Anyway, I perused the Star Wars novels, during a rainy day when I thought I’d be reading James Joyce or something. …Dark Side Rising, The Shadow of the Sith, Legacy of the Force; these novels are all united in having a lot more hot babes in them than the actual Star Wars movies — which have zero hot babes in them, unless you count a frigid-acting Natalie Portman as a hot babe, which I don’t, not really. I guess that what’s makes them “fan fiction,” though — hot girls + inscrutable jargon about the Force + laser swords = geek happy time.
The novels are also united in being eye-blindingly terrible. Below are some random-ish excerpts from my favorite one, Star Wars: The Courtship of Princess Leia, which ends with Princess Leia marrying (spoiler alert) Han Solo, despite some desultory fake-out bullsh-t where she might marry some guy named “Isolder.” So below are my favorite random quotes from the novel, followed by my possible responses to them. Please to enjoy. Or not:
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EXCERPTS FROM ‘STAR WARS: THE COURTSHIP OF PRINCESS LEIA’
–“Do you really think you could take a man as a slave, or pummel me with rocks, and still hope to retain your innocence?”
–“In my grandmother’s day, we pushed the wild rancors from these mountains.”
–“I’m right here. Han Solo, in the flesh.” He leaned his face forward. “Go ahead, slap me. Or kiss me. Or talk to me.”
–“She’s alive!” Luke said firmly. “And she’s terrified but hopeful, I can feel it.”
–“It seems that relations between the Verpines and the Barabels are disintegrating at a faster rate than we anticipated.”
–“We’ve been running for hours,” Leia said. “We’ve got to stop and rest, soon.” She wiped perspiration from her brow.
–“Well, there’s a first time for everything,” Han said, moving behind Threepio to snap the fatigues on. Somehow, it made him feel uncomfortable. In some homes, the wealthy had droids dress them, but Han had never heard of anyone dressing a droid.
–Leia spun and talked directly in his face. “No! I’m not going to let you sweet talk me. This isn’t a game. This isn’t a fun ride. Our lives are on the line. And right now, whether you love me and want me to marry you, or whether I love Isolder and want to marry him — none of that matters anymore. We’ve got to get out of here. Now!”
–“Well, Han, you’ve certainly struck the jackpot this time. This planet must have more enemy fighters than a Hutt has ticks.”
–“I’ll be careful,” Luke said, and he patted his R2 droid lovingly and stared at it, as if gazing through its metal exterior.
–“Yes,” Luke said huskily.
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And here are some possible responses that I would give, assuming that I existed within the world of this novel. See if you can match the responses with the quotes! Correct answers are given below:
a) “Jeez-us.”
b) “So you’re into the kinky sh-t, then.”
c) “…Jesus Christ.”
d) “Jesus f-cking Christ.”
e) “Jesus Christ with the attitude Leia.”
f) “I’ve had just about enough of your Hutt-bashing for one day, missy.”
h) “Try shutting up for two seconds; you’ll run faster.”
i) “Jesus Christ. Oh my god, shut up.”
j) “Jesus Christ.”
k) “This is so much like my 3-CPO slash fiction that it’s scary.”
l) “Hey, hand me that rock over there, would you?”
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…So there’s that. And now, a special contest thing! Can you come up with funnier responses than I did during the 100 seconds where I didn’t really come up with “funny” responses? No doubt you can! Leave your response in the comment section, along with the copied-and-pasted quote, and the best response wins a prize.
…And by the way, the last time I offered a prize on this site, I contacted the winner, who seemed to think that I had been “joking” about the whole thing. But look into my eyes; look deep into my lovely blue eyes. I’m not joking. No jokes here. You’ll win a prize, which will consist of a postcard, a drawing by me, and then some stupid cheap toy or something, all of which will be mailed to you. I never joke about prizes. Ask anyone. …And now, here are the answers–
Answers: 1-L, 2-B, 3-A, 4-D, 5-J, 6-H, 7-K, 8-E, 9-F, 10-C, 11-G